


The rain will be gone (in the morning)

by wingedspirit



Series: A Blaze of Light [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, M/M, Raphael!Crowley, The Dowlings' A+ Parenting, Warlock Deserves Better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 03:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21468961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingedspirit/pseuds/wingedspirit
Summary: What happened to Warlock Dowling?(Part of a series, but can stand alone. All you really need to know to not be confused is Crowley is Raphael, and at this point he’s an angel again.)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Warlock Dowling, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Warlock Dowling
Series: A Blaze of Light [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1512323
Comments: 40
Kudos: 651
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works)





	The rain will be gone (in the morning)

It is pouring down with rain, too much even for early December, honestly, and he is soaked to the bone and cold and exhausted, huddled shivering under a bush with his backpack and suitcase and his stupid umbrella that lasted all of five minutes in the wind and rain before it turned inside out and broke. If everything had gone according to plan, he’d have been safe and warm in a hotel room by now, not alone and freezing here in this stupid park, but of course, nothing ever goes right for him.

It’s getting dark, and colder, and he probably shouldn’t stay here, but it’s not like he has anywhere else to go. Except home, but he’s not going back. He’s not. So he might as well just stay here, under this stupid bush. It’s not like he can get any more soaked than he already is. And so he sits and glares at all the people with better umbrellas, who are all nice and dry, maybe a little damp at worst. They don’t notice him, of course, they all have better things to do, better places to go. Who cares about a stupid boy under a stupid bush in this stupid park in the pouring _fucking_ rain.

Ugh. Not even swearing is making him feel better. Horrible day from start to finish. He should’ve known it was going to go wrong, he should’ve planned better, he should’ve… he doesn’t know. Done _something_ different. But he just needed _out_.

The wind throws a spray of rain straight in his face, and he splutters and wipes at his face futilely. Out of the corner of his eye, his vision blurry, he catches sight of… is that…

“Nanny?” he whimpers.

The person doesn’t stop, rounds a corner and walks out of his line of sight, and that makes sense, honestly. Red hair and a lanky frame doesn’t mean anything. It looked like a man, anyway. It’s not even the first time this happens. Ever since Nanny had left, not long after his tenth birthday, he’d been looking twice at every red-haired person he ran into, just in case it was her. But it never was.

And even if it had been her, with the rain and the wind and everything, she’d not have heard him call. And even if she’d heard him, why would she care? Nobody cares about him, not his father, not his mother, not anybody else. Being a nanny is just a job like any other; she probably put him out of her mind the moment his father decided her services were no longer required. He thought she’d loved him, but that was just him being stupid. She’s probably not even in London anymore.

He buries his face in his knees and does his best not to cry. He’s too old to cry now, anyway, his father always tells him that, it’s undignified, he’s growing up into a fine young man, he’s no longer a child, and men don’t cry.

“Warlock?”

The voice is warm and painfully familiar, and he looks up, startled. Crouched in front of him is… it _is_ a man, after all, with hair longer than Nanny’s ever had and not wearing the familiar sunglasses, eyes a strange bright shade of golden brown, like a butterscotch candy, almost glowing in the dim light, but it’s Nanny, it _is_, he would know that angular face anywhere.

“_Nanny_,” he chokes out, all but throwing himself into her, or rather his, now, he guesses, arms.

Immediately, he’s pulled into a tight, warm hug, and he’s never in his entire life been hugged that way by anybody who wasn’t Nanny, not even by Brother Francis, even though of the two of them you would think Brother Francis would give the better hugs. And maybe he’s not growing up, after all, he’s still a small boy, because he can’t help but burst into tears, clinging in a way that has to be uncomfortable, it has to be, because Nanny is perfectly dry while he’s soaked through with rain, but Nanny only makes soft, soothing sounds and holds him close.

“Warlock, my boy, what are you doing out here like this?”

He tries to answer, he really does, but he can’t manage, so he just buries his face in the crook of Nanny’s neck and cries harder. He feels, more than hears, the sigh, and then Nanny is standing, lifting him as if he weighs nothing, and it feels like a soft, fluffy blanket has been wrapped around his shoulders, and like the rain is no longer touching him, which is, of course, perfectly silly, but either way he feels warm. Feels _safe_.

“Right,” Nanny says, softly. “Home, then.”

“Not home,” he manages. He doesn’t want to go back home, where his parents keep shouting at each other about how much they hate each other, and how much they hate him as well.

“Ah.” Nanny shifts his weight so he’s carrying him with only one arm, like when he was little, and leans sideways to pick up his suitcase. “Run away, did you?” There’s no judgment in his voice.

Warlock clutches at him even tighter and nods into his shoulder.

“Right,” Nanny says, again. “Well, I’m certainly not leaving you here, but I’m also not making you go back to your parents’ house, at least not until you’ve explained what happened. Want to come home with me?”

That startles him enough that he stops crying, and pulls his face away from Nanny’s shoulder so he can look at him. “With you?”

Nanny’s lips twitch up in a small smile. “That’s what I said, yes.”

“To your home?”

“Yup.” Nanny starts walking down the path Warlock had first seen him on, one of the several that lead out of the park. “If you’d rather not, I can find you a hotel room, of course.”

“But… won’t I be in the way?”

“Is that what your parents say to you?”

He knows that mild, deceptively pleasant tone of voice entirely too well. It’s the one that usually precedes a scolding. “Um.”

Nanny sighs. “Yeah, don’t answer that. I’m not mad at _you_. So?”

“Home is fine,” Warlock says, cautiously. He hopes that’s the right answer.

It seems to be, because the soft, gentle smile Nanny gives him for that is one of the rare ones. He’d only ever seen Nanny smile that way a handful of times, when she thought nobody was looking.

He can’t help but smile back. And then he squirms, because now that he’s not busy crying into Nanny’s shoulder, he feels guilty for making him carry both him and the suitcase. He knows he’s gotten too big to carry. “I can walk.”

Nanny nimbly adjusts his hold against his squirming. “No need. I’m parked right here.”

Indeed, there’s a car parked right next to the park gate, slotted neatly between the spot where the double yellow lines end and the spot where they resume, and Warlock stares. It’s an _old_ car, the kind of car that looks like it should be kept in a garage as part of a collection and only taken out to make people jealous, certainly not the kind of car anyone with sense would leave parked on the street in the middle of London. Definitely not the kind of car he’d expected Nanny to drive, but somehow it suits perfectly. Absolutely not the kind of car anyone would let a child even remotely close to, let alone inside, though.

The warm-blanket feeling moves and shifts around his shoulders as Nanny sets him down gently by the car and opens the passenger door, then reaches into the car, under the back seat, pulling out a large, fluffy, dark red towel, which he wraps snugly around him. “In you go.”

“I’ll ruin your car,” Warlock says, helplessly.

Nanny gives him a flat, unimpressed look. “If any water gets on the upholstery,” he begins, and Warlock flinches, because that sounds like the beginning of one of his father’s ‘you better behave or else’ speeches, but Nanny just ruffles his damp hair, gently, “I’ll fix it later. Get in, hellspawn.”

Warlock nods, pulls the towel more tightly around himself, and carefully climbs into the car and settles on the seat. Nanny closes the door for him and walks around the car, pausing at the back to put the suitcase into the boot before opening the driver’s side door and climbing in.

“Um. No seatbelt?”

Nanny’s lips twitch. “Don’t worry. I’m an incredibly safe driver. Well, I hit someone once, but only the once, and I’ve been driving for more than a century.”

Warlock does his best to copy Nanny’s flat, unimpressed look from earlier, but he doesn’t think he quite manages. It makes Nanny chuckle, though, so that’s alright.

“Ah, hold on,” Nanny says, then. “I should make a phone call.” He digs his phone out of a pocket, dials, then drops it on the dashboard, the sound of ringing filling the car as he pulls out into the traffic.

One ring, two, and then an answer. “Hello?”

And Warlock startles, because he knows that voice, too, he thinks.

“Hello, angel,” Nanny says, cheerfully. “Remind me — what time are you getting home tonight, again?”

“Probably no earlier than seven, I’m afraid. Still a few things to sort out at the bookshop.”

“_Brother Francis?”_ Warlock blurts out.

There is a moment’s pause. “Warlock? My dear boy, it’s so lovely to hear from you again. How have you been? However did you run into Crowley?”

“Um.” Crowley? Must be Nanny’s name. It’s a really weird name, though, and he can’t think of Nanny as anything other than Nanny. And Brother Francis is waiting for an answer, and he’s left it too long, and whatever he says is going to sound stupid, and…

“Ran into him in Hyde Park,” Nanny says, smoothly. “Invited him over for dinner. Think you could pick something up from that Chinese place near the bookshop?”

“Oh! Certainly.” Brother Francis sounds as cheerful and happy as ever. “I’ll just get a bit of everything, shall I?”

“Sounds good. See you later, angel.”

“See you later, dearest.”

“I _knew_ it,” Warlock crows, triumphantly, the moment Brother Francis hangs up.

“Knew what, hellspawn?” Nanny’s voice is sharp, but there’s a ghost of a smile on his face.

“Cook always said you looked at Brother Francis like you wanted to jump his bones. And I don’t know what that means,” he knows full well what it means, he’s eleven, not five, but getting scolded would sidetrack the conversation, “but you always used to look at him and smile when his back was turned.”

To his immense delight, Nanny goes faintly pink. “Cook never learned how to mind her bloody business,” he mutters. Then, louder, with the softest smile Warlock has ever seen: “But I suppose I did, at that. It doesn’t bother you?”

“Nah.” Warlock shrugs. His father would say it should, especially with Nanny being a man now, just like he would probably say that Nanny being a man now is a crime against nature, but the more time he actually spends with his father, the more convinced he gets that being the exact opposite of his father in every way is the best thing he could possibly do. “You love him?”

“Yeah,” Nanny says, still with that soft smile. “I do.”

“I thought so. You got all mushy.”

“Mushy,” Nanny says, arching his eyebrows.

Warlock grins and sticks his tongue out in pretend disgust. “You call him _angel_. That’s mushy.”

“Alright, that’s enough of that.” Nanny gives him one of his patented glares, mouth and eyebrows flat, but he can tell he’s not really angry, so he doesn’t worry. Nanny had never been truly harsh or stern, of course, not to him, but this new version of Nanny is so much softer it’s honestly a little strange. Good, but strange.

“We’re here,” Nanny says, parking the car on the side of the street, in the one spot that lacks double yellow lines.

And that’s just… that’s ridiculous. Warlock is so thrown that he can find nothing to say as they both climb out of the car, as Nanny fetches his suitcase and leads him into the building and nods a greeting to the porter. As they walk into the lift, and Nanny presses the penthouse button. As they walk into one of the largest, fanciest flats Warlock has ever seen, and he’s seen a lot of fancy flats.

They’ve barely driven 10 minutes, the length of Hyde Park and little more, and Warlock knows the area and has, he thinks, a pretty good idea of what flats are worth around here, especially in big, fancy buildings like this one, especially if it’s the penthouse. It’s the kind of place that would make even some of his parents’ friends go purple with envy, and his _Nanny_ and his _gardener_ live here?

“I do hope you’ve got some clothes in your suitcase,” Nanny says, mildly, “and not just comic books.”

“Um,” Warlock says, pulled out of his thoughts, “I… I do.”

“Good. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go take a bath so you can warm up, and put on dry clothes. And then we’ll talk, alright?”

‘We’ll talk’ rarely leads to anything good, coming from an adult. But this is Nanny, he can trust Nanny, despite all the strangeness. He probably just wants to talk about him running away from his parents’ house. “Alright.”

Nanny smiles and cuffs him lightly on the cheek. “I know you have questions. You’re too clever not to have any questions. I’ll answer, I promise.”

Warlock feels himself flushing, warmed, as always, by Nanny’s praise. “Okay.”

“Bathroom’s down that corridor, to the left.” Nanny waves a hand in the general direction of the corridor in question. “The light blue towels are clean. Feel free to use bubble bath, shampoo, whatever.”

Warlock nods and trudges down the corridor, pausing to grab a set of clothes from the suitcase. The bathroom is absolutely enormous, all covered in white marble, with a raised bath that’s closer to the size you’d expect from a small pool and a separate walk-in shower that looks like it could comfortably fit ten people simultaneously. Again, he’s been in fancy flats, quite often, but this is truly something else. There are three sets of towels and bathrobes hanging from wall hooks, a light blue, a pale cream and a dark red. The light blue bathrobe is exactly his size.

Well, he’s not taking a bath, that would take ages. Shower it is.

He looks through the frankly monstrous collection of shower and bath products until he finds a shower gel that doesn’t smell too flowery and won’t leave him covered in glitter, showers quickly, gets dressed again just as quickly and hurries back to the lounge. He really wants answers, at this point.

As soon as he walks into the room, Nanny looks up, sets aside the book he was reading, and pats the sofa cushion, inviting him to sit. “First things first,” he says, gently. “You ran away from your parents. Why? And how did you end up under that bush?”

Warlock sighs, dropping onto the sofa and slumping sideways against Nanny, who immediately moves to wrap an arm around him. “My parents are divorcing,” he says, quietly, “and it’s… ugly. They keep having screaming fights. And this morning they were arguing and my father was shouting at my mother that it’s her fault I’m a disappointment, that she raised me too soft. And she was shouting back that she had gone to law school, she deserved better than to be a trophy wife with a stupid child she didn’t even want.” There had been rather a lot more swear words included, but he doesn’t think Nanny would appreciate that detail. “And they say things like that all the time, and I just… I couldn’t stand it anymore. I went to my room, and packed a suitcase. I had to walk right past them to get out of the house, and they didn’t even look at me. I don’t think they even realised I was there.”

Nanny has gone tense, he can feel it, and when he hazards a look at him… he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Nanny this furious before. He softens immediately when he notices him looking, though. “I’m not angry at you,” he says, on a long sigh. “What happened afterwards?”

“I tried finding a hotel, but all said they were full or that they don’t rent to unaccompanied minors, and I should come back with my parents or get them to call. The last one I tried told me to wait, and they’d see if they could find me a room, so I waited, but then I overheard them calling the police about me, so I ran.”

“And that’s how you ended up in the park.” Nanny’s voice is carefully even, but his arm tightens around him.

Warlock nods, glumly.

“Right.” Nanny sighs. “I’ll just start with the apology, then, shall I? I should’ve come find you immediately, after — everything. I _wanted_ to. But I thought you would be better off without having me around; better off with some —” his mouth twists “— some _normalcy_, in your life. I was, obviously, very wrong.”

“Not your fault my parents are jerks,” Warlock mumbles.

“Maybe not, but I knew how they can get. I should’ve checked. I’m sorry.”

Warlock tries to remember the last time an adult apologised to him, and fails. There’s certainly been none of that since Nanny and Brother Francis left, because it’s not something his parents have ever done. “It’s alright. You’re here now.”

“‘Better late than never’ doesn’t really apply here, I’m afraid.”

“Does too, because I say so.” Warlock grins encouragingly. “I’m going to rule the world, remember?”

Nanny’s face twists into a complicated, unreadable expression. “Ah. Yes. About that.”

“I’m _eleven_, Nanny, I know you didn’t mean it,” Warlock says, a little confused. He hadn’t thought that was something that needed to be clarified.

“I did mean it. That’s the problem.”

“You… what?”

“You remember anything about that really strange day in August?”

Warlock frowns, remembering his father yelling quite a lot about it. “The one with all the mass hallucinations? The kraken, Atlantis, all that? Yeah, but I missed most of the weirdness. My parents took me to a dig in Israel, there was this shouty archaeologist guy who smelled real bad and kept asking me if I heard voices.”

Nanny flinches, but his voice remains smooth and even. “Yes. That wasn’t mass hallucinations, though; that was the beginning of Armageddon. Yes, the end of the world, yes, I do mean that.” He sighs. “I’m sorry; there is no good way to say this, not really, so I’m just — going to be direct. The reason I was your nanny, and Francis — his real name is Aziraphale — was your gardener — we thought you were the Antichrist. We wanted to raise you so you would love the world, and hopefully, when the time came, decide not to bring about its end.”

If anyone else were telling him this, Warlock would have no doubt this is a prank, would be looking around for hidden cameras by now. But this is Nanny, and Nanny gets the benefit of the doubt. “But I’m not the Antichrist.”

“No. You aren’t.”

“But the world didn’t end.”

“No. The actual Antichrist decided he liked the world well enough.” Nanny’s lips twitch into something close enough to a smile that it would pass for one, if Warlock didn’t have the benefit of many years spent learning every expression. “He’s a good kid as well. You’d like him.”

Warlock considers briefly. “So who are you, then?”

“I’m an angel.”

Warlock can’t help but snort. “Crowley’s not a very angelic name.”

Nanny raises his eyebrows at him, his eyes glinting oddly, almost reflecting the light. “_That’s_ your main objection to the whole thing? My name?”

Warlock shrugs. Nanny has a point, it is strange that the name is the thing that bothers him the most, but the rest of it makes an odd sort of sense, and if Nanny is really an angel, well, those are immortal, aren’t they? So he’d have had a lot of time to get rich, which would explain the flat and everything. “I _want_ to believe you, but you’re not giving me any proof.”

“Well. Let me stand up,” Nanny says, softly, “and you’ll get your proof.”

Warlock obediently uncurls and moves away from Nanny’s side, sitting straight on the sofa. Nanny stands up, and walks a few meters away, and turns around to face him, and then the air shivers around him, and he… he…

Wings. Big wings. Very big, very real wings. Actual real angel.

“You might want to breathe,” the angel says, mildly, but Warlock only half hears him. He’s too busy staring.

Six big, fancy wings, all sorts of different colours, from black all the way to gold. The top ones look like they’ve got real stars in them, twinkling and shining as the wings move.

“_Holy shit_,” he manages, distantly aware that he sounds very like Brother Francis’ favourite teakettle.

“_Language_, hellspawn.” The stern glare the angel gives him is pure Nanny, as is the sharp tone of voice, and it shakes him out of his daze, because… that’s still Nanny.

Nanny who raised him, who sang him lullabies and told him stories and kissed his skinned knees all better, who’s been more of a parent to him than his actual parents ever have. Nanny who cares about him, very obviously cares, because there was no need for him to do any of this, to take him to his actual home and tell him the whole entire truth. He could’ve just taken him to a hotel or back to his parents’ house and washed his hands of him.

So Nanny’s an angel, well, he can deal with that. It’s not going to make his life suck any more than it already does. In fact, knowing Nanny as he does, and seeing how his day had been before Nanny had found him, it’s hopefully quite likely to do the exact opposite.

“Sorry, Nanny,” he says, doing his best to sound contrite. “Would ‘unholy fuck’ be any better?”

Nanny’s lips twitch, and he snorts softly. “You’re taking this well.” There’s a mix of emotions on his face, in his golden eyes, amusement and pride warring with some other feeling Warlock can’t quite put his finger on.

“You’re still you,” Warlock says, with a shrug. “‘Cept now I know you’re an angel and you’ve got wings. Can you actually fly with them?”

He recognises the emotion on Nanny’s face, this time. It’s relief, pure and simple, although it’s only there for a moment, gone in a flash as Nanny schools his features back into a mock-severe look. “Yes, I can fly, and no, don’t even bother asking, I’m not taking you flying. No, I will not cave on this. Take up hang gliding if you want to be up in the air that badly. Stop looking at me like that, you know that doesn’t work on me.”

Warlock has, in fact, been deploying his best pleading puppy eyes. “_Please_, Nanny?”

“No.” Nanny smiles. “You can, however, touch my wings, if you want. Just be careful. The primaries — that’s the big feathers — are very sharp.”

It takes a moment for the meaning of what Nanny’s said to sink in, and then Warlock is scrambling off the sofa, stumbling and tripping over his own feet in his rush. Nanny makes a choked-off sound that sounds entirely too much like a smothered laugh, but Warlock can’t bring himself to mind. Not when it’s accompanied by one of Nanny’s wings moving smoothly forward, so he can catch himself on the ridge of it to keep from falling.

“It’s warm,” Warlock says, surprised.

“Well, yeah. I’m not cold-blooded.” There’s amusement in Nanny’s voice.

Warlock runs his hands carefully along the wing, doing his best to move with, not against, the grain of the feathers, just in case it might be unpleasant to do it the other way. All the feathers are incredibly soft, both the small and the large ones, even at the very bottom of the wing where the gold colour makes them look like they might be made of metal. The sheer size of them is more than a little intimidating, though, especially up close. The biggest feathers in Nanny’s wings are longer than Warlock is tall, and he’s growing, he’s not a small boy anymore, his head comes up to a little above Nanny’s shoulder, now.

Curiously, he peers up at the topmost wing. “Are those real stars?”

“Sort of. They’re real, but they’re not…” Nanny pauses briefly, clearly looking for a way to explain, and then just shrugs. “They’re on a different plane of reality. All that’s coming through on this one is what they look like. They won’t feel any different than the rest of my feathers, if you touch them.”

Nanny moves the wing towards him so it’s easier for him to reach, in obvious invitation, and Warlock places a hand over one of the large feathers at the bottom of it, carefully, remembering what he’d been told about the sharp edges. It’s a fair bit wider than his palm, and some of the stars set in it shine so brightly that the diffuse light from them makes his hand glow red.

“Is that how you hide them, too? By putting them somewhere else?” The feathers are solid and real under his hands, but they can’t always be, Nanny would never fit through doorways or be able to sit in his car.

“Yes. Are you done looking?”

Warlock nods and pulls his hands away, figuring that’s his cue to stop touching. “Are you… is there anything else you needed to tell me?”

“No, that was everything. Well —” Nanny makes a face. “The whole thing is rather more complicated than I made it sound like, but I figure that can wait for a better day. And I’m not — you’ll have to forgive me for not being specific about certain parts of it until you’re older. But I will not hide things from you any longer. You deserve better than that. Alright?”

Warlock nods again, blinking back the sudden, fresh tears, and buries his face in Nanny’s shoulder, clinging desperately. Nanny wraps his arms around him and picks him up, and then his wings wrap around him, too, slipping around his shoulders like a hug, like a soft, fluffy blanket, like…

Oh. Like earlier, in the park.

Distantly, he’s aware of Nanny humming a soft, soothing tune as he moves back to the sofa. The exhaustion of the day finally catching up with him, he falls asleep like that, wrapped up warm and safe in Nanny’s arms and wings.

⁂

The sound of the door latching shut is soft, but it still pulls him closer to being fully awake than he’d like, and he snuggles closer into Nanny’s side, grumbling a wordless complaint.

“I see you told him.” Brother Francis’ voice is very quiet, barely above a whisper.

Nanny’s answer is just as soft. “You knew I was going to. You called his parents?”

The sofa dips as Brother Francis sits down. “I did. It wasn’t hard to convince them that it’s alright for him to stay with us tonight, but they expect him back tomorrow morning.”

The noise Nanny makes then could be called a hiss, but it sounds nothing like the kind of hiss a human would be able to make. “I don’t like the thought of taking him back there.”

“Neither do I, but if we’re doing this, we’re doing it the right way. We can’t just steal him away.”

“Says you,” Nanny mutters. “They didn’t even notice him _leaving_, Aziraphale. That’s just —”

“I know, love. We’ll fix it.”

Nanny sighs. “Yeah.”

There’s the sound of takeaway containers being opened, and the smell of food pervades the room, and Warlock’s stomach reminds him, very loudly, that he hasn’t actually had anything to eat since breakfast.

Nanny chuckles and nudges him, gently, and shifts so he’s no longer fully wrapped in a wing cocoon. “I can tell you’re awake, hellspawn. Come on — let’s get some food into you, and then you can go back to sleep, alright?”

Warlock mumbles a complaint about the disappearing warmth, but obediently opens his eyes. If nothing else, he is very curious to get a look at Brother Francis. Nanny has changed a lot, so Brother Francis probably also…

…okay, no, Nanny has not changed very much at all, actually, after all. He can still think of Nanny as Nanny, but he cannot think of the person sitting on the sofa next to him as anything but Aziraphale, the name Nanny’s used for him. No sunburnt face, no enormous sideburns or bushy eyebrows, no prominent teeth… Brother Francis looked like a gardener from an old book, Aziraphale looks like an absent-minded librarian from a century ago.

“You look… different,” he manages, and then pauses, blinking, because Aziraphale is familiar, and not just because he’s a very changed Brother Francis. “Wait, were you the magician at my birthday party?”

Aziraphale beams at him. “I was indeed.”

“And you’re an angel too?”

Aziraphale nods, still beaming.

“But…” Warlock frowns, confused. “If you’re an angel, you can do proper magic. Why would you do rubbish fake magic tricks?”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Nanny starts cackling. Aziraphale shoots him a wounded look above Warlock’s head. “Tell me you didn’t put him up to this, Crowley.”

“I swear I didn’t, that was all him.” Nanny sounds like he can only barely manage to get the words out through the laughter. “Heaven and Hell, angel, your face’s a picture.”

Aziraphale purses his lips, and for a moment Warlock worries that he’s made him angry, he’s spoiled everything, now they will not want to have him around, but then the sunny smile is back. “Well, I suppose not everyone has an appreciation for the fine art of prestidigitation.”

“Fine art, he says,” Nanny mutters, quietly. “Nothing _fine_ about it.”

“I heard that, you old serpent,” Aziraphale says, fondly.

“Course you did,” Nanny drawls, cheerfully, equally as fond. “Come on, let’s eat. Food will go cold.”

They keep talking over dinner. Warlock finds out that Aziraphale does, in fact, prefer that name, while Nanny doesn’t really care one way or the other, and that Aziraphale has a bookshop but doesn’t actually like selling books, while Nanny doesn’t have anything even remotely like a job. “I’m retired,” he says, with a shrug, when Warlock asks. “Technically, we both are.” Neither of them looks old enough to be retired, of course, but jobs probably work differently for immortal angels.

It’s… weird. He’s gotten used to eating by himself, and the very rare meals with his parents are silent, tense, strained affairs, occasionally interrupted by one more screaming argument. But Nanny and Aziraphale talk and laugh freely, keeping him included in the conversation, and when they make fun of each other, when they bicker, it’s always gentle and good-natured. They’re very obviously together because they _want_ to be together, not because they _have_ to be, not like his parents or his friends’ parents or other adults he’s seen, and it’s just… _so_ weird. Good, but weird.

They eat and talk, talk and eat, and when they’re done eating, they talk some more, and he knows he’s going back to his parents tomorrow morning, and this may be the last bit of happiness he’ll have for a while, so he does his best to push the exhaustion away. Eventually, though, Nanny notices, mostly because Warlock lets his eyes close for just a moment and ends up almost face-planting into the coffee table.

“Right, hellspawn, time for bed.”

“‘M not sleepy,” Warlock mumbles.

Nanny just crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. Warlock tries to stand firm, to glare back, but in spite of his efforts, his eyes slip closed once more, and he ends up falling forward again, this time right into Nanny.

“Honestly,” Nanny mutters, softly stroking his hair. And then Warlock is pitched gently backwards, head hitting a pillow that he would swear hadn’t been there a moment ago, and a soft blanket is tucked around him. The last thing he feels, before he falls asleep, is Nanny kissing his forehead.

⁂

“So, we did a little research and a bit of thinking last night, while you were asleep,” Nanny says, conversationally, while they’re having breakfast.

Having just stuffed almost half of a croissant in his mouth, Warlock can only make a questioning noise.

“Smaller bites, hellspawn, the croissant isn't going anywhere,” Nanny chides. “Anyway. Your school also takes boarding students, doesn’t it?”

Warlock swallows, with some effort. Maybe Nanny is right, and smaller bites are better. Maybe. “Yeah, some of my friends are boarders. I wouldn’t mind that, but I tried suggesting it to my parents a few months ago, and it didn’t go well.”

“Ah, but that was months ago,” Aziraphale says, very mildly. “They’re having such a hard time working out their divorce, the poor dears. Surely it would be ever so much easier for them if they didn’t have to worry about taking care of you, as well. They could even go back to the United States without having to be concerned about interfering with your education, since you’d be staying here.”

There’s not a hint of sarcasm in Aziraphale’s voice, so it takes Warlock longer than it should to work out the meaning of what he’s really saying. If his parents went back to the States and left him here, that would be absolutely perfect. Except… “What about breaks and holidays? The school is closed, then, my parents would have to come get me.”

“That would only be unnecessary trouble for them, interfere with their lives too much.” Nanny grins at him over the rim of his coffee cup. “No, the best thing to do would be for them to nominate a guardian, someone who lives here in England. And they know us already, right? We’ve proven we’re trustworthy, we practically raised you. We’d be the perfect guardians.”

Warlock drops his croissant and stares. “You would do that?”

“Of course we would,” Nanny says, gently, his grin softening into a smile. “Of course we will. Anytime you want to stay with us, you’re welcome to, not just during breaks and holidays. So, yes, we’re going back to your parents’ house this morning, but just long enough for Aziraphale to explain all this to your parents while I help you pack. I’ll need to make a room for you, of course, I’m not having you sleep on the sofa again, but —” he lifts a shoulder in an easy shrug. “That’s easy enough.”

Easy enough to make a room for him, just like that. To be fair, it probably is for angels, but… it’s not just that. It’s not just the physical room, it’s everything else that goes with it. Easy enough to make room for him in their home, in their _lives_. He’s the wrong boy, he should be unwanted by them just like he’s unwanted by his parents, and yet…

He really, really hopes that he’s not dreaming this whole thing, that he’s not about to wake up still under that stupid bush in Hyde Park or, worse, still in his parents’ house.

Helplessly, he looks between Nanny and Aziraphale, unable to put everything he’s feeling into words. He thinks they understand, anyway. This time it’s Aziraphale who pulls him into a hug first, because he’s nearer, but Nanny gets there a moment later, wrapping his arms around them both. Almost as if they’re a family.

“Alright, hellspawn?” Nanny murmurs.

“Yeah.” For the first time in a while, he thinks he will be. “Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Vienna Teng’s “Lullabye for a Stormy Night”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dslen0lIUYA).
> 
> As ever, you can find me on [Tumblr](https://wingedspirit.tumblr.com/).


End file.
